Quote:
Originally Posted by coffeebean
I've thought about how to decrease trash volume. I'm at a loss. I have no idea what I could possibly eliminate from the trash we put out for collection.
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There are places known as eco-villages that address this very thing. Their goal is zero waste. They don't achieve it, but they reach for it like no other community I know of. They have compost toilets and use the resulting compost for their produce gardens, and they are mostly self-sustaining. They have very little plastic, from any source at all, other than the piping for their running water. They have solar showers, solar heaters, and some use wind turbines. They're completely off-grid but fully powered.
It's amazing how much waste you discover you have, if you were shown an example of an entire community that reaches for zero waste.
Things you don't even think about - like laundry detergent containers. Dryer sheet boxes. Empty butter containers. Empty juice bottles, empty cans, empty dog food bags, paper tissues (as opposed to cloth hankies), empty plastic bags and used saran wrap, pizza boxes, take-out containers, used tin foil, the list goes on and on. And after all that, you BUY plastic bags, for the express purpose of filling them with trash and throwing them away. If that's not the very model of waste, I don't know what is.
I'm not saying that I don't waste. I absolutely do, and I own that. But ever since a friend of mine moved to an eco-village and showed me the website where I could actually read about the concept and see photos of the community and learn about the mechanics of the whole thing, I'm much more aware, and try to be a bit more responsible about the consumption.
Forgot to add a very significant type of waste that no one gives a second thought to in the Villages: the vegetable peels and discarded produce that you all stuff down the garbage disposal. No, it doesn't go into the trash. But that is organic material that could be turned into fertile, gorgeous, nourishing compost for flower gardens. Instead, you stuff it into your sewer system.